Specialty Gourmet Coffee
By By Gary Gresham
Specialty gourmet coffee is a very hot commodity in today's market. The consumption of gourmet coffee has steadily grown with consumers enjoying the more sophisticated tastes of gourmet coffee beans
Specialty gourmet coffee, sometimes called premium coffee, is exceptional coffee beans grown only in ideal coffee-producing climates. These coffee beans have unique characteristics because of the soil they grow in which produce very distinctive flavors.
Gourmet coffee has a more balanced flavor and richer taste than the standard mass-produced coffee. Gourmet coffee beans go through a rigorous process of certification that is stricter to help keep the quality high.
In the 1974 issue of the "Tea & Coffee Trade Journal", Erna Knutsen first used the term 'specialty coffee' to describe these unique coffee beans that are produced in special microclimates with these distinctive, exceptional flavors.
In 1982 the Specialty Coffee Association of America was created by coffee professionals to help set quality standards for the specialty coffee trade.
Since the 1990's the growing popularity of the coffee houses and specialty gourmet coffee retailers, have made
